ISTANBUL — Turkish riot police firing tear gas and water cannons took less than half an hour Saturday to bring to an end an 18-day occupation of an Istanbul park at the center of the strongest challenge to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s 10-year rule.

The sweep by riot police emptied the Gezi park of protesters, leaving behind colorful, abandoned tents. Bulldozers moved in afterward, scooping up debris as crews of workmen in hard hats and yellow vests tore down the tents. Protesters put up little physical resistance, even as plainclothes police shoved many of them to drive them from the park.

Smoke billowed skyward as riot police marched inside the park Saturday. They tore down protesters’ banners, toppled a communal food stall, and sprayed tear gas over the tents — urging those inside to get out.

For more than two weeks, protesters had defied Erdogan’s warnings to vacate the area.

Tayfun Kahraman, a member of Taksim Solidarity, an umbrella group of protest movements, said an untold number of people in the park had been injured — some from rubber bullets.

“Let them keep the park, we don’t care anymore. Let it all be theirs. This crackdown has to stop. The people are in a terrible state,” he said by phone.

A brutal police intervention May 31 against those protesting plans to redevelop the square and the park had sparked the biggest anti-government protests in Turkey in decades and dented Erdogan’s international reputation.

The protests, which at one point spread to dozens of Turkish cities and towns, turned into a much broader expression of discontent about Erdogan’s government and what many say is his increasingly authoritarian decision-making.

Erdogan, who was elected with 50 percent of the vote for his third term in 2011, vehemently rejects the accusations by protesters and points to his strong support base.

As they entered the park Saturday, police shouted to the protesters: “This is an illegal act, this is our last warning to you. Evacuate.”

Shortly before the police launched their operation, Erdogan had threatened protesters in a boisterous speech in Sincan, a suburb of the capital Ankara, that is a stronghold of his Justice and Development Party.

“I say this very clearly: Either Taksim Square is cleared, or if it isn’t cleared then the security forces of this country will know how to clear it,” Erdogan said.

Erdogan already had offered to defer to a court ruling on the legality of the government’s contested park redevelopment plan and floated the possibility of a referendum on it.

A pro-government rally is planned for Sunday in Istanbul, though Erdogan has previously said that the rallies were not designed as “an alternative” to the demonstrations at Gezi Park.

On Saturday, Erdogan lashed out at what he called the “plot” behind the biggest street protests in his 10-year tenure.

“You are here, and you are spoiling the treacherous plot, the treacherous attack!” he said, insisting unspecified groups both inside and outside Turkey had conspired to mount the protests centered on Istanbul.

Taksim Square itself returned to normal after the end of the police operation. Traffic returned, the protest banners and flags were taken down, and cafes set up their chairs and tables outside again.

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